Chapter 12. Phoenix, part 1

Holy crap, we're finally here, guys! The final chapter to my story! I've mentioned many times before that there's going to be a lot of unanswered questions, however the one thing I wanted to finish was Cinder's character arc. I'll be starting school again soon, specifically engineering courses, so instead of making everyone wait several weeks for a chapter, I'll simply make this one and a bonus page where I explain what I want to see next volume. Some people have been asking if I like to do requests/other stories, but I don't see myself doing anything like that. I'm going to be too busy with school and writing my own personal novel, so it's best for me personally if I just leave this here and come back in the Winter, maybe, just to do something miniscule. Who knows, it may not even be Rwby-related.

At one point in the story, Cinder's hair is going to change to look like Hana's from "Wolf Children" (Trust me, you'll understand why).

Thanks to everyone who's stuck by me with this and I hope you enjoy this last chapter. Fair warning, this is the chapter that's going to feel more like a fanfiction than anything prior, but it's one that I've been wanting to write for a while. Basically, these last few chapters have been part of my plan since day 1, along with certain moments that, unfortunately, won't be addressed in a manner of story. Here's to hoping V6 fixes a lot of problems and, I pray, develops Cinder.

The ground shook with each step the monsters took, approaching the raven-haired maiden. Cinder could feel her heart beating, torn between obeying the instinct to dodge and her earlier decision to kill herself. She snapped out of her trance when the ground shook and knocked her off balance. Once collecting her bearings, she saw the lion's giant claw come down to smash her. However, that wasn't good enough. With what little juice of aura she had left, she levitated out of the way of the claw, smashing down and leaving a SUV-sized footprint, and hovered above the forest. Below her were all the grimm coming back together, the griffins and hawks flying upward to attack. Things quickly became a game of tag, only it was now the tagger who had to run.

Cinder looked towards the city, possibly her only means of escape. Then all the events and thinking in the past hour returned, preventing her from moving. A large shadow suddenly covered her, to which she looked up and saw a griffin in a nosedive. She dodged the monster only to see more of its companions trying the same strategy. More came at her from all directions until one in particular got a hit in and she fell to the ground.

She got back on her feet only to look around and see nothing but grimm, the three giants closing in as well behind her.

"…it's…hopeless…" She thought, falling to her knees. "Pyrrha Nikos, Vernal…wherever you are, you won't have to wait any longer. I'll be seeing you soon." She imagined both women, waiting on the other side to torment her for eternity.

As the wolf made a leap at her, his claw drawn and heading towards Cinder, a loud clashing sound rang throughout the lake. At first, Cinder took it as a thunder crash from the storm, until she felt a massive forearm scoop her up, surprising her.

"You okay?" She heard her rescuer say.

She looked up to see Gabriel, his face still black and blue. Despite the damage, he wore a smile that said everything about the conflict earlier. His black wings extended for several meters as they flapped and brought them closer to the stars.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Cinder asked.

"Just had a couple questions that only you could answer. Let's get out the hell outta-" The faunas's sentence was cut off by the howling shriek of a hawk grimm, soaring towards them. As Cinder prepared the last of her aura to prepare one last sword, Gabriel raised his tonfa, a glock built into the handle, and fired several rounds at the bird's face. In five seconds, it lost both of its eyes and barreled down to the ground, landing in a heap of mud. Its body evaporated and the twins emerged through its smoking corpse, appearing to now wearing jean shorts and shirts with their respective colors. Melanie wore her blades on knee-high boots and Miltiades wore normal tennis shoes. Cinder looked around the forest, expecting to find Lucy, but no cigar. Rachel appeared absent as well.

Cinder struggled to get out of the man's arms. "Let. Go of me. Dammit Gabriel, you're not supposed to be here!"

"Just shut up!" He barked, Cinder snapping to attention. "Cut the angsty crap and just come back to us-"

He was cut off again by the loud roar of the lion grimm, waving its claws at the two of them. Gabriel dodged only to be met with the jaguar leaping at them, jaws extended. With no time to dodge, Gabriel lifted one arm off of Cinder and stood still midair to allow the beast to chomp down on them. Cinder, out of fear, closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

Chomp! The monster bit down on them both, only for Cinder to open her eye upon realizing she felt no pain and found Gabriel's feet and free arm holding its jaws in place. Cinder looked amazed.

"You alright?" He asked, to which she nodded. "Okay, let's get out-" Gabriel was cut off by Michael shouting Melanie's name in the distance. Cinder and Gabriel looked back and saw the giant wolf stepping on the other grimm towards the twins, Michael fending off the giant lion.

Gabriel felt anxious, but before he and Cinder could fly out, the jaguar took advantage of the distraction, reared its head back and snout upward. Gabriel was now holding onto its top jaw tooth, wailing out in pain once its mouth closed and entrapping his fingers between the teeth. Seeing him in pain left Cinder only one option.

Michael looked on, stunned by the fact that his own brother was swallowed whole, only to be taken out by Melanie's distant pleas.

"Michael, cover us!" Melanie shouted, her and her sister surrounded by grimm.

The faunas put his hands together and made a shockwave that pushed the lion back and into the water. His weapons drawn and anger reaching higher limits, the grimm turned their attention to the divebombing bird as he readied another shockwave. Though the constant recoils were killing his arms, it didn't stop him. He used both hands individually to blow all the surrounding grim away and, once recovering from the recoil, grabbed both girls and flew upwards. A bird grimm flew towards him only to get headbutted in response.

Upon saving his girlfriend, Michael hoped there was still time to save Gabriel only to look over at the giant jaguar who shrieked in panic. The monster shook its head until a blinding light bore out of its jaws and a strong beam burst out the back of its skull. The carcass fell back into the lake and Gabriel swooped out of its dissolving head, holding Cinder in both of his arms with her back facing his torso. Michael, Melanie, and Miltiades watched in awe.

"There!" Cinder pointed at the wolf grimm as it gunned towards them.

Gabriel hatched an idea. "Hey, your aura can cover me so long as we're touching, right?"

"Y-Yes. Why?" Cinder asked.

"Hold on and give me some of that maiden aura. This might get rough."

At first, she felt afraid of what he had in mind, but quickly gave up and used what little remains of her maiden aura she could muster.

Meanwhile, now relaxed to see his brother safe, Michael fought off more of the airborne grimm, Melanie hanging onto his back while he used his right bracer to fire at the incoming demons. He knew they wouldn't last much longer, but a grimm that size would rip half of Fegefeuer apart. Retreating would mean luring it to the city, which left the option of fighting to the end their only one.

The giant wolf made another loud cry at the trio from the ground before Melanie turned her head towards the remaining body of the giant jaguar. Recalling the jaguar's head blown out from inside, Melanie hatched her own idea.

"Mikey! Get me and Miltia closer to the wolf's head. We'll take out its eyes and you can shoot through to its brain. Think you can you do it?" Melanie explained.

Michael gave an arrogant smirk and nod while Miltia turned blue in the face with eyes widened.

"WAIT! I NEVER AGREED TO-" Miltiades began before Michael let go of her to grab the back of her shirt.

Melanie climbed on top of his shoulders and pounced off as Michael pulled back on Miltiades like he was about to throw a baseball.

"HEADS UP!" Michael shouted, throwing Miltiades who screamed all the way towards the monster's roaring face.

She extended her claw and caught onto the wolf's face, holding on for dear life as it swayed its head around.

"MILTIA!" Melanie shouted, plummeting face first towards the same eye.

She curled her body around as she prepared a kick. Miltiades caught onto the plan and, once the beast began to calm down, readied her claw. Once Melanie made contact with its face, the two girls struck in unison and pulled out several pieces of the monster's eye. The grimm shrieked in pain as the two girls free fell to the ground while it threw its head back. Michael flapped his wings to stay in place, trying to hold off the remaining airborne grimm, and aimed his left bracer at the monster's eye. In the blink of an eye, Michael aimed his weapon and fired a single shot perfectly into the eyehole, piercing the monster's brain. Within seconds, the demon fell on its side but showed signs of life, evident from its twitching legs.

Gabriel lifted himself and Cinder up into the air and prepared another nosedive.

"Alright, before I do this, do you trust me?" He asked, looking and sounding serious.

Cinder gave a pause followed by a sigh. "Yes."

She let her aura flow onto him and he began his dive towards the lion's head. The beast looked up at what looked like a falling star, growling and letting out one last loud roar. Gabriel made a fist, merging his semblance with Cinder's aura, and they both made out a loud battle cry. The distance between them and the monster shortened in two seconds, Gabriel extending his fist upon contact with the creature's skull.

CRASH! The beast's head began to shatter, red flesh from underneath exposed everywhere and trees shook from the shockwave. The carcass fell to the ground and the two of them gently descended next to it as it evaporated into the air.

There were a few seconds of silence before Michael broke it with a final shot at the wolf's head. All five of them were heavily breathing, absorbing the carnage they brought onto the surrounding grimm. Cinder looked up at him, marveling at the enormous man before her; Gabriel returned the favor, noticing the smaller woman's eye still glowing. Gabriel just realized he was still holding onto Cinder's waist; Cinder had just realized she was still holding onto his arm. The two awkwardly let go and backed away from one another, Cinder's eye ceasing its maiden glow. As Cinder was about to thank them, Michael set the tone.

"There, she's safe. Can we go now?" Michael asked, towards his brother in anger.

Cinder looked at him, who only looked back at her.

"Yeah, we're fine. Can…you guys give us a moment?" Gabriel asked the group, Michael sighing out of disappointment.

Michael turned around and motioned for the twins to follow. Melanie followed without a second thought but Militades felt discouraged.

"You sure you'll be alright." She asked, Gabriel replying with a confident smile and a vertical hand wave.

The short-haired girl turned towards Michael and caught up to him and her sister as they left for the city.

"You know, we're a pretty good team Cinder. I talked to Rachel and she-" Gabriel stopped himself upon realizing the maiden was walking away. He ran after her, walking in rhythm with her.

"Hey, where are you going?" He asked.

"I don't know. Just…wherever the road takes me, I guess." She answered, her words sounding frail.

"Then why not come back with us?"

"Because…I'll just screw up again."

Another brief moment of silence ensued.

"Gabriel, I know you mean well…and you have the biggest heart out of anyone I've ever met." Cinder then thought of Ruby Rose, still believing her statement to be correct. "But…I've made too many mistakes. For every good thing I've ever done, there's ten horrible things attached. I'm…beyond hope."

Gabriel stepped up, his voice firm. "No! You aren't. You're not just gonna give up like that." She stopped in her tracks but refused to look up at him. He turned to face her. "You've proven you're capable of doing good things, Cinder. I've seen the news reports. Sure, you've done bad things, but they're not all you've done. To those workers in the mines, you were a hero!"

Cinder snapped to his attention in anger, her eye glowing and grimm arm raised. "Do I look like a hero?!"

Gabriel remained stoic, Cinder's eye slowly losing its glow. He reached out and grabbed her hand, her eye widening as their hands lowered to waist level.

"Let's take a walk." Gabriel said, his voice soft.

In Rachel's room at the orphanage, the old woman laid on her bed with a glass of water next to a bottle of cardiac medication on the nightstand. Alongside them was an alarm clock, the time reading 4:01 AM. Lucy sat next to her, playing games on her scroll. Rachel laid awake under her covers, thinking for the past hour entirely of Cinder.

"Do you think they're alright?" Rachel asked.

"Uhhhh…yeah?" Lucy answered. "Trust me, Cinder may have had the guts to kill someone before all that drama in Vale, but not now. I saw that look in her eye; the look of defeat." She smiled at that last sentence.

"Would…you mind if Cinder came back?"

"I don't really care. She wants to leave, why stop her? Didn't that guy…uh…Oscorp-"

"Ozpin."

"Yeah, him. Hasn't the whole 'Choice' argument always been his schtick?"

"But it's different here." Rachel began to raise her volume only to stop upon feeling a slight irritation in her chest again. "It's just…I've never seen Gabriel choose to go to such lengths for anyone, especially someone who threatened to decapitate him and then beat him until he was knocked out. She didn't even grab the relic."

"Well, what would it say if she did come back?"

"…it would say, hopefully, that she's done. Done with everything related to the relics, Salem, Ozpin…all of it."

"So, what are you hoping for?"

Rachel couldn't come up with an answer right away. She politely asked Lucy to take the relic back to the church's safe, to which the albino did, and that question repeated in her mind until she found her answer.

The two warriors continued their long walk back to the city, Gabriel's wings extended as umbrellas above them as the rain poured.

"How did you do that? Crushed the grimm's head I mean?" Cinder asked.

"My semblance is super strength. When I was young, I wanna say eight, there was a big car accident downtown where Rachel took the three of us for a festival. A car turned on its side as it tried to make a sharp turn. It was a convertible, too, and it was about to flip onto its roof, so I rushed towards it and extended my hands like I was about to catch it. I was just lucky enough to activate my semblance at that precise moment." Gabriel answered.

Cindered marveled at the giant, young man before her. "Guess that explains why you're…big." She felt relieved, saving herself last second from saying "ripped" or "buff".

"Actually, that's not because of my semblance." Gabriel continued. "After that day, Rachel got me very worried, constantly telling me not use my semblance unless it was an emergency. Even then, I loved feeling strong, knowing I wasn't some weak little kid, so I made a decision: if I had to be strong, I'd spend every day getting stronger. For ten years now, I've exercised and ate healthy, only stopping to play guitar with Michael and Lucy or working at the orphanage."

Cinder thought of what he said; training for years on end only to break for others. Mercury and Emerald came to mind, specifically how Cinder never took a break for them.

"Guess exercising also included how to use those tonfas?" Cinder asked.

Gabriel adjusted the holsters around his waist. "Yeah, well, when you live in somewhere like Fegefeuer, no one blames you for learning self-defense…or in our cases, self-taught. Actually, if you don't mind me asking, again, where exactly are you from?"

Cinder took a small pause before giving her simplest answer. "Here." Gabriel raised his eyebrow in confusion. "Fifteen years ago, this city used to be called 'Empyrean' and I lived, only with my father, in that village on top of the mountain. Everything, at least from what I can remember, was great…until one night…when he, along with the rest of the village, died."

"W-What happened e-exactly?"

"…I didn't realize until a little while ago, but it was actually a group of bandits who attacked us in the middle of the night. The last thing I remember was their leader, a huntress with black hair, impaling my father through his chest. I'll never forget his eyes, how sad and painful they looked as he slowly died in front of me. Then, and I don't know why, the leader pushed me off the edge of the mountain and there was this blinding light that came up from behind her. I didn't know all the details until later, but I woke up the next morning on a ship headed to Atlas. Then…"

Cinder's hand began trembling, Gabriel tightening his grip to try to relax her. "…then…a man, whom I eventually found out was Jacque Schnee, held onto me for about a week before selling me to one of his richest neighbors."

"Wait! He sold you! That's human trafficking!"

"Yeah…I really wish he cared; would've saved me a lot of trouble. For the next nine years, I was the house maid, the cook, the plumber, all for an old witch and her two spoiled daughters." Cinder's grip tightened harder than ever, but Gabriel did nothing in response. "I…couldn't fight back, not when I didn't know how to. They always kept me locked in my room when company was over and told me to eat my meals outside in the vegetable garden. One night, I just snapped, just knelt and prayed in the garden for a miracle, and then…a miracle happened in the form of Salem." Cinder's memories of that night, once her favorites to revisit were now her most shameful, sent chills up her spine. "She appeared out of nowhere and asked me what I wanted most. So, I said, 'I want to be strong. I want to be feared. I want…to be powerful.' She told me she could make that fantasy into a reality if I swore my allegiance to her, and so I did. Earlier that night, I activated my aura without realizing it and she told me how to use it. Needless to say, I left that dreadful family in pieces." Gabriel continued listening, trying to remain calm while Cinder resumed. "So, for the past six years, I trained under her guidance and, eventually, brought about the fall of Beacon." There was another awkward pause. "…I'm not proud of what I did back then, and I'm not proud of who I am now."

Gabriel looked over, the maiden hanging her head in shame. She stopped in place again.

"And that's why I want you to go back without me. I don't even belong here; I had my second chance and I blew it." Cinder said gloomily.

Gabriel understood her well enough, to which he had the best counter-argument. "Do you really believe you're the most evil person here?"

Cinder's eye widened.

"Trust me when I say I've seen worse.

"I told you my parents have been dead for over a decade too, right? Well, I had a night just like the one that happened to you." Cinder inhaled in shock. "Our parents owned their own dust company in Vacuo, but they were more than that. Our company owned most of the dust mines and sights around that part of the continent, and we were all one big family of angel faunas. Some of my family worked in the mines, others worked in the sights, and a few even worked as nuns and pastors in the churches around the continent. Wings of every color and bird species, we were royalty in the eyes of the continent…but not everyone."

Cinder felt her heart skip a beat.

"From what Rachel's told us, the Schnee Dust company tried to bargain for our family's company but our father pushed them away each time, something about them not treating their workers properly, I think.

"Then, in just one night, everything fell apart. Our house had been set ablaze, Rachel grabbed me and my siblings and rushed for the police only to be caught by our attackers, and, before we knew it, our parents were gone. Rachel kept all of it a secret because they paid her hush money…and threatening to kill us if we went public didn't hurt their chances either. One day in particular, Lucy activated her semblance when a random stranger tried to kidnap her and roasted him alive. To avoid publicity, the company transferred all of us to here.

"So, for the next fifteen years, we've just lived here, quietly and without a problem. Michael activated his semblance when he was getting bullied one day, and he definitely took after Lucy since then."

Cinder began piecing the dates together, her village's assault happening around the same time as the assault on Gabriel's. She guessed Gabriel knew that already too, which raised one question in her mind. "But…why not want revenge? Salem told me I was enslaved because of the huntsmen turning their backs on me, so how come you didn't do the same?"

"It's come to mind before, but then I ask, 'Does it even matter anymore?' I was only three when our parents died, so, not to sound nihilistic, I can't say it had much of an effect on me. I've always considered Rachel to be my mother."

"Does it even matter anymore?" Cinder thought.

Only now did she realize how long she held Gabriel's hand with her grimm one. He looked down too and, blushing immediately, let go of her hand and began apologizing. For the first time, she found him to be charming and made a grab for his hand again.

Just then, Gabriel's scroll began to ring, the caller ID reading "Rachel".

"Hey Rach…yeah, I'm heading back now…yeah Cinder's here too…ugh, yes I'm fine, and so is she…what…o-okay…thanks, I love you too." Gabriel hung up his phone and looked at Cinder. "That was Rachel. She said…she wanted to talk to you."

Cinder felt surprised, though didn't suspect any hostility. The two continued walking towards the city, the sky brightening as the sun began to rise.

Junior slammed the door to the upstairs apartment of the restaurant, Michael and the twins standing in the living room and soaking wet from the rain. The older man, wearing a wife-beater and basketball shorts, gave Michael a death glare, to which Michael hung his head in shame.

"I've always told you: never be out after dark, and instead you're just now arriving at four in the morning?! What is wrong with all of you?!"

Melanie intervened. "Junior, look, it was urgent. That girl who knew Roman, she was about to steal…something…and we had to stop her!"

"If it was that important, you should've just called the cops instead of just chasing after her." Junior pointed at Michael. "As for you, I expected better. I've trusted you with Melanie since we moved here and, until tonight, you've never been a problem."

"I know, Junior, and I'm sorry. Look, no one's hurt, and got what we wanted anyway, so…if you're gonna punish someone, let it be me. I'm the one who dragged the girls into it, so it's my fault."

Junior made a loud sigh. "Just…at least let me know ahead of time if you go to fight someone, especially outside the city limits. Otherwise, forget about a punishment."

The young trio felt ecstatic knowing they were off the hook, Junior feeling the dire need of a vacation.